COUNCILLORS in West Cork have raised concerns about the lack of manpower at civic amenity centres and the redeployment of Uisce Éireann staff.
Cllr Finbarr Harrington (Ind) raised the issue at a meeting of the West Cork Municipal District meeting last Monday, saying: ‘We are swapping staff around again.’
He suggested that annual leave was one of the issues affecting the level of operatives at various civic amenity sites and he called on officials to address the issue before the height of the summer season.
County mayor Cllr Joe Carroll (FF) agreed that in addition to Castletownbere, there is also an issue at the Clonakilty and Derryconnell [Schull] civic amenity sites.
Cllr Carroll also expressed concern that people are ‘bailing out of Irish Water one by one and going back to the Council.’
The mayor complained: ‘There is going to be no one in West Cork. The person I was dealing with is leaving as well, and he was brilliant.
‘You might say it is Irish Water’s business,’ he added when addressing Council officials, ‘but it is very much our business. It is our remit to get in contact with these people.’
Cllr Finbarr Harrington said: ‘I don’t want to sound like we are always bashing Irish Water, but this morning I got five calls from business people in Castletownbere who had no water due to unplanned maintenance.
‘If you have a business, a café, and the water is turned off and you get no notice other than a text at 9.22am this morning saying there will be unplanned maintenance until 14.00 today, that is totally unacceptable,’ he added.
Cllr Harrington said it would be better to tell people about planned maintenance works instead of ‘just rocking up in town, like John Wayne, and turning off the water. That is totally unacceptable and as the summer goes on, we will be left in a worse situation.’
Cllr Danny Collins (Ind Ire) said the man he deals with when there are water outages is ‘going back to the Council as well.’
‘Who do we turn to now?’ he asked. ‘To get answers we have to go to the local man. There’s no point in ringing the 1800 number because you might have to wait two weeks to get a reply.’
Cllr Daniel Sexton (Ind Ire) said every councillor relies on the knowledge of local operatives. ‘It’s the local man who is the one with the brains and looks after the problem. They are the ones who know the water network inside and out,’ he said.
A spokesperson for Uisce Éireann issued a statement saying: ‘At Uisce Éireann, under the Framework Agreement, water services staff employed by their local authorities and working on behalf of Uisce Éireann have a choice of either transferring to Uisce Éireann or being redeployed to another function or role within their own local authority.
‘Uisce Éireann has made it clear that it needs and wants all water services staff to transfer across to Uisce Éireann, bringing with them their local knowledge, expertise and experience.
‘However, it is a choice for the individual which route they choose to take. We are not in a position to comment on any individual status.’
